Refund

#1 If it's such a huge sum of cash for you, why didn't you bother to investigate what a game engine was prior to purchasing it? If GG does refunds for something silly like this, then they really deserve a cookie for excellent goodwill. But something tells me they don't.

#2 I have worked with you before and tried to help you out. There are, of course, very good reasons to provide refunds for any number of goods. I do not know if I can, in good faith, provide a refund for getting in over your head with the engine. If you want, we can talk more through e-mail like we have in the past. Since I had helped you in the past, why didn't you contact me?

#3 Note: I am NOT a garagegames employee, I'm just offerring my opinion.

If you purchase software from a retail store, it cannot be returned once opened.

I feel bad for Huw, but I have to agree with Stefan.

I've been using Torque for years, and the engine is too much for me also, however, I read about several engines, spoke with several members of multiple forums, tried out the demo, and browsed the books at the local bookstore BEFORE I sent in my money. I knew it would be challenging.

I'm sorry Huw, but I'd consider it a lesson learned and let it go. You paid for a license and the source code (which you got). Garagegames never claims anywhere that the engine will be compatible with your abilities.

Let this be a lesson to all potential purchasers. Research before you buy.

I wish Huw all the best of luck, and as a Torque user, I hope you keep trying to use the engine. It is a very good product.

Tony

#4 (david: I assumed you were a developer rather than the sales department.)

If you bought a 300$ anything then you'd probably do more than shrug it off. Originally I decided I'd pay and call it an investment, because I do know what a game engine is and I thought I could save a lot of pain buying a ready made one.

I'll let the money go, but I want the admins to pay attention to this:

I bought torque because it had lots of great reviews, when I searched it again after I'd bought it I discovered that there are plenty of bad ones way down the page. The main thing in common with every review is poor documentation. That's what's letting the whole engine down. You may think it doesn't matter but it really does. If you keep my money, then you make an effort to fix the documentation for new users.


"The TGE documentation is just awful. For any of you who own TGE, take a look at all of documentation. Most entries are not yet completed, and the people on the forums never answered any of my questions."

"Torque badly lacks documentation, especially for C++ developers. There are 2 books already released, but they both describe built-in script language. WhenI have asked on their forums for C++ documentation, I was adviced to read Doxygen created docs, or to explore header files myself. I even was unable to find some basic tutorial."

"Outdated and Undocumented...
Nearly all the documentation is outdated and useless, serving nothing more then to completely bury any useful documentation out there.
I cant recall the countless hours I've spent trying to follow tutorials and digging through resources only to find I just spent hours on something that no longer works with the current engine build."

"the major problems are

1.- absolutely lack of will of making documentation for it, so good documentation and guides doesnt exist

2.- the tiny documentation that currently exists its outdated and mostly useless"

http://www.devmaster.net/engines/engine_details.php?id=3

#5 Documentation has been a big weakness of Torque for a while. However, GarageGames is putting in some serious effort now, and I don't think that review applies anymore. In fact GG has hired someone specifically to handle documentation. Please start here:

http://www.garagegames.com/blogs/44571/15271

http://www.garagegames.com/blogs/44571/15604

http://www.garagegames.com/docs/tgea/official/

http://www.garagegames.com/developer/torque/tgea

Review all of the docs, and see if you still believe the documentation to be lacking. By the time you read through all of current documentation, more will probably come out. There is still much more documentation to come, as TGEA 1.8 is soon to be released, as well as some new documentation that comes with it.

TGEA is not an "easy" engine. It is not a click together game creator, and I don't think it is advertised that way. It will take some coding and scripting to use properly. For the $300 you spent, however, it can produce a very high quality game(s), but you will have to get past the learning curve. The EULA is excellent, and it is easily the best engine for the money in my opinion. Give it another look since you now own the engine, consider it an investment that you will learn from. With enough effort, you may learn to love it.

#6 @J.P Berry - Thanks for that! I just lost my entire post by accident, but it contained everything you just said. So I can just simplify =)

@Huw - I really hate review sites for tech, because they are so out of date even after a few months. For instance, some of those quotes are over a year old! Good lord =)

I prefer newer reviews: LIKE THIS

Quote:I have to congratulate you on the updated documentation system. I was one of the really early adopters and jumped on board from pretty much day one but I must admit never actually used it for anything because it was an overload and I'm saying that from the perspective of somebody who has had to use many different engines in my day job. So, I am finally considering Torque again and wouldn't have done had I not seen your post here.

I had no plans of bringing this next part up, but it's my "Ace in the hole." One of our customers sent us an e-mail directly stating our documentation is "Way better than Unreal's!" He's talking about the fully licensed engine, not some free mod kit. People can argue whatever they want, but that kind of feedback makes me feel pretty damn good =)

Click Here To See My Past 8 Blogs About Documentation

My job is not done, and never will be. But for one person, I think I get enough done to say those quotes no longer apply to Torque. By early 2009, you will start seeing public quotes similar to: "One of the reasons I like Torque is the documentation is awesome!"

#7 Huw - I can understand your feelings as it's not the easiest of things to get into, writing games requires you to have a great commitment, invest a tonne of time and effort and learn a lot along the way.

There is a book that covers some C++ with the engine but again it will only scratch the surface... it's a huge product with tens of thousands of lines of code and it's not worse documented than many other products on the market - you learn through picking up and working with it.

GG are working on improving the documentation which has come on leaps and bounds now Mr Perry is at the helm. I'd take up Davids generous offer of help it's a good one.

#8 I would say don't give up on Torque just yet. If you are stuck with the engine, you might as well keep it installed and from time to time open it up and tinker with it. Make a few new weapons, create a building and throw some bots in there to interact with. If coding isn't your strong point I can see how even TorqueScript would be overwhelming. TorqueScript is really a lot easier than it looks, and is also very powerful in its own right. You can get a lot done with small amounts of scripting, including creating some basic bots. Throw in Dan Keller's path finding resource (www.garagegames.com/index.php?sec=mg&mod=resource&page=view&qid=14558) and you can do quite a lot with those bots.

Another thing that I always have to mention and I believe is one of the most powerful features of Torque. The network code. Torque has, simply put, the best net code that there is. No other engine in existence can touch it. In the days of Tribes2, I could play online with 32 people on a 28.8kbs dial-up connection(it was a family curse). Other games that I later played were Halo with a max of 6 before it lagged out, Unreal Tournament 2004 with a max of 8 people(got some lag spikes), and of course World of Warcraft with a decent 20-25 people onscreen before it started lagging(but was still playable).

Torque is one of those things that you need to nibble at here and there before it all really starts to come together. Once it does, true power is recognized. Thats when the juices really start flowing.

#9 Dont give up. Dont get a refund. Its worth every Cent.!
Read and re-Read, in the end it will be worth it.
There are so many Docs out there.
Dont be impatient Bookmark all thats important to you
You will get it in time.!


Best community that exists on the net !

#10 What everybody has said...and don't give up on it. Pushing ourselves and discovering our boundaries and then going beyond them is how we learn. It takes time and commitment to learn the inner workings of Torque. I've heard of the improvements to the documentation, but to me diving in and figuring out why something I did didn't work, reading the code, knowing the code is the documentation. Every user's experience varies but nothing is out of our grasp if we only try. I've never made a game with another engine but I've modded several (many) and Torque has come to be the tool that helps me realize my ideas. It lets you do what you want to it, not what someone else decides you can do. Our skills just need to grow to encompass that, and if you need help along the way then this community will help you more than any other I've been around.

#11 Patience is the key to anything worth having. I mean absolutely NO disrespect to you. AMonth is just not long enough, especially if you are working alone. Several groups here have spent years on their projects and are still not finished.

My opinion is that if you just want to mod an existing game, torque is not for you. If you just want to make a game, Torque isn't for you. Its too big, too all encompasing.

But if you want to LEARN what makes a game, and how to put that knowledge into effect, then Torque is excellent.

But like everything else in life, you only get out what you put in.

It takes time. Lots of time. I had NO C++ experience when I bought TGE. I played around with it for awhile, then I left and actually finished a game with RPGMaker.

Then I came back, and now I'm making much better progress.

Don't give up! The community IS there, and we will help as much as we can.

Good luck!

Tony

#12 Gah...I wish you all were posting in this thread: Unity vs Torque.

It would be nice to have these awesome compliments reaching a neutral forum =/